Robots.txt & Sitemap Tree Visualizer
Validate and parse robots.txt rules with a live URL crawler path tester, expand recursive XML sitemaps in a virtual tree grid with lastmod freshness scoring, and export sitemap URLs to CSV.
Interactive URL Path Crawler Tester
Test whether a specific web crawler is allowed or blocked by the active robots.txt rules.
Explicitly allowed by rule 'Allow: /' on line 10.
Robots Exclusion Standard & Sitemap Parsing Notice
Robots.txt evaluation complies with RFC 9309 precedence rules (longest matching pattern wins). XML sitemap parsing recursively analyzes sitemap indexes and URL freshness.
Comprehensive Technical Guide & Reference
Inspect live robots.txt directives, simulate crawler permissions for Googlebot and AI crawlers with the interactive path tester, and navigate large XML sitemaps in an interactive virtual grid.
11. Step-by-Step: How to Test Robots.txt & Sitemap Trees
Audit crawler access and indexing architecture:
- •Enter Domain: Input your website URL to fetch both `/robots.txt` and `/sitemap.xml` automatically.
- •Test Specific URLs: Use the live path tester to test URL paths against specific user-agents (Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot).
- •Inspect Sitemap Tree: Expand recursive XML sitemap indexes to review total URL counts, `lastmod` freshness dates, and priority scores.
- •Export Discovered URLs: Download all valid indexed URLs as a clean CSV spreadsheet for technical SEO audits.
22. Technical Explanation: RFC 9309 Rule Precedence
Under the formal RFC 9309 Robots Exclusion Protocol, if both an `Allow` and `Disallow` rule match a URL path, the rule with the longer, more specific character pattern takes precedence:
- •Example Precedence: `Disallow: /private/` is overridden by `Allow: /private/public-doc.pdf` because the Allow pattern is longer.
- •User-Agent Specificity: Exact user-agent matching (e.g. `User-agent: Googlebot`) takes precedence over wildcard `User-agent: *` blocks.
- •Sitemap Directive: `Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml` tells crawlers where to find the authoritative index.
33. Managing AI Crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Perplexity)
To control AI model training while preserving Googlebot search indexing, define distinct user-agent directives for `GPTBot`, `ClaudeBot`, and `PerplexityBot`.
Frequently Asked Questions
No! A `Disallow` rule only prevents Googlebot from crawling the page content. If external websites link to that URL, Google may still index the URL. To guarantee complete removal, use `<meta name='robots' content='noindex'>`.
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